Tag: Elektra

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Phoenix, Black Cat, Blade

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel’s offering up discounts on Phoenix, Black Cat and Blade. If you look closely, you might also find some unannounced Daredevil and Elektra on sale, too…

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Going Down in Flames as a Form of Progression

X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix  Phoenix Rising  Phoenix

The Marvel Phoenix Sale runs through Monday, 8/18.

Jean Grey, if you prefer.

For many, the character is defined by “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” arguably the high point of an already great run by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Pick up X-Men Epic Collection: The Fate Of The Phoenix and get “Days of Future Past” in the same package.

Then Jean/Phoenix was dead for several years. Phoenix Rising is slightly mislabeled as being an X-Men book. The resurrection of Jean Grey is the birth of X-Factor, which crosses over with Fantastic Four and Avengers for the tale. Which means you get John Byrne, Roger Stern, John Buscema, Bob Layton and Butch Guice all contributing to the tale.

New X-Men is the Grant Morrison run with a fairly sick rotating cast of artists including Frank Quitely, Leinil Francis Yu, Igor Kordey, John Paul Leon, Phil Jimenez, Chris Bachalo and Marc Silvestri. As you’ve doubtless heard, it’s a very good run.

The current Phoenix series is by Stephanie Phillips / Alessandro Miracolo and is more of a cosmic adventures series.

Some other sale highlights:

Scratch

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Nine Lives Has The Black Cat  Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do  Black Cat

The Marvel Black Cat Sale runs through Monday, 8/11.

And that would be Spidey’s occasional girlfriend / frenemy (depending on the author/era).

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Nine Lives Has The Black Cat is mostly a Marv Wolfman / Keith Pollard run and features the debut of a certain Felicia Hardy.

Fast forward to 2002 and Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do by Kevin Smith & Terry Dodson begins. It didn’t actually finish up until early ’06, but it was vaguely the next act for the character.

Jump to ’04, which was the middle of the “pause” on Spidey/Black Cat and you’ll find that the first year of Marvel Knights Spider-Man by Mark Millar and the aforementioned Terry Dodson featured Black Cat in a prominent role.

Black Cat next turns up on the Heroes for Hire team by Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray/Billy Tucci, with Zeb Wells/Al Rio/Clay Mann later in the run.

She pops back into Petey’s life in ’09’s Spider-Man: Return of the Black Cat, with that arc being a Joe Kelly / Mike McKone production.

Jed MacKay starts his Black Cat run in ’19. Lots of artists tagging in and out, with Travel Foreman and CF Villa being prominent on the list. This also is one of those single issue relaunches that they ignore when numbering the collected editions. Since Amazon sorts by single issue series, V.1-3 are here and V.4-6 are here.

Iron Cat is an ’02 follow-up by MacKay and Pere Perez.

Did You Say “Stake?”

Blade: Black and White  Blade  Blood Hunt

The Marvel Blade Sale runs through Monday, 8/11.

Now there’s a character that’s changed a little bit since his introduction.

Blade: Undead By Daylight is a collection of some of the original Tomb of Dracula appearances by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan.

Blade: Black and White is built around Blade’s appearances in Marvel’s black and white magazines of the 70s, Marv Wolfman/Chris Claremont/Tony DeZuniga being the primary creators here.

Flash forward not quite 20 years and you get the material in Blade Epic Collection: Nightstalkers, which is (primarily) the ’91 Tomb of Dracula revival by Wolfman & Colan, plus the first six issues of Nightstalkers by DG Chichester and Ron Garney, which was part of the Midnight Sons line.

Jump ahead to ’06 and you get a Blade run (pun intended) by Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin.

The more recent Blade saga comes in a sort of cluster.

First, Jason Aaron’s Avengers run. Then there’s the Blade series by Bryan Edward Hill / Elena Casagrande / Valentina Pinti, where Blade becomes the sheriff of Vampire Nation. All of the above leads in the the Blood Hunt Event by Jed MacKay and Pepe Larraz. (There are a couple tie-ins available in the sale, but the Avengers one strangely isn’t included.)

“Normal” Unannounced Sales

The Curse   Daredevil & Elektra  Daredevil The Man Without Fear

As usual, we’re not sure when these sales are ending, but here’s what we’re seeing:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Wolverine and Deadpool material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

And if you’re REALLY cheap, the first Powers collection seems to be free at the moment. Great series that sort of fell in the background when Bendis was kicking out all those Events at Marvel. (Seriously, it seems like he was doing 10 comics/month and his creator owned material got put on the backburner.) Powers is the real deal.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man; Elektra; Hellboy; Red Sonja

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on pretty much the full run(s) of Amazing Spider-Man, plus Elektra. Dynamite slashes prices on Red Sonja crossovers. While Hellboy is blowing up on Hulu, that should be on sale, too… right?

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

A Spider a Day Keeps Doc Ock Away

Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 3/24.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the excellent Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)
  • Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. Surprise, it’s not part of the sale this week (so maybe look for a Superior Spidey sale next week? See: the Elektra sale below this listing)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man(2015-2018) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair. The “Worldwide Collection” omnibuses are the better buy.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to the next series (and set up portions of it)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022-Present) – The current Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run.

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods until the excesses of the Clone Saga (which some would argue are highlights). Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 Epic Collections for the original run (although a few Epic’s run a little higher). The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, since there’s a sequel mini-series out, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

And yes, we did enjoy the recently completed Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it largely a good ride. And this is a series that plays the long game resolving subplots.

A Daredevil Omission Explained

Daredevil & Elektra  Elektra Assassin  Elektra

Marvel Elektra & Kingpin Sale runs through Monday, 3/17.

Remember last week when we were scratching our head about why someone would leave out Daredevil & Elektra from the Daredevil Sale, since it’s the final act of the Zdarsky run?

They were saving it for this week’s sale, but it’s only on sale this week (the DD sale is through the end of the month), so if you want to see how the Zdarsky / Checchetto era ends while it’s discounted, you want to do that now.

Past that, this is really more of an Elektra sale. Elektra highlights over the years:

  • Elektra: Assassin  (’86)– Frank Miller / Bill Sienkiewicz; Originally published under the Epic imprint (to keep it FAR away from the comics code), this is a wild, over-the-top tale of Elektra and a rogue SHIELD agent trying to stop a conspiracy by The Beast (the demon worshipped by the ninjas of The Hand, not the X-Man) from capturing the US presidency through demonic possession. Widely considered a classic and Sienkiewicz gets to really cut loose.
  • Elektra (’96 – ’98) – Peter Milligan / Larry Hama / Mike Deodato, Jr.
  • Elektra (’01 – ’04) – Greg Rucka / Chuck Austen (drawing, not writing) / Joe Bennett / Carlo Pagulayan / Carlos Meglia / Greg Horn

Crossing Over

Red Sonja / Tarzan  Mars Attacks Red Sonja Red Sonja & Vampirella Meet Betty & Veronica.jpg

The Dynamite Red Sonja X-Over Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

This would be Red Sonja crossing over with other characters, some obvious and some less intuitive. Some highlights in order of increasingly raised eyebrow:

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  The Hobbit  The Secret History of Wonder Woman

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men  Ultimate Spider-Man  Phoenix

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Dropping Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Huge Batman Sale; Justice League; Black Hammer; Matt Kindt

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC breaks out a very deep and cheap Batman sale with lots of $2.99 ebooks… and the Justice League, too. Marvel cuts prices on Elektra. Dark Horse highlights Black Hammer and Matt Kindt amidst a line-wide sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

You Had Me at $2.99 Batman

The DC Batman: The Caped Crusader Sale runs through Monday, 8/12.

Well, now… this is certainly an interesting and relatively exhaustive sale. Most of the collected editions are on sale and at good prices. You see $2.99 at DC and it’s time to pull the trigger, so take note and lord it over your friends.

And yes, it’s named after the new animated series, which we’ve started watching and is starting out astonishingly dark and pulpy. (Both good things in our book.)

Let’s try and make things a little easier list and mark off the more notable of the various series included in the sale:

Batman Special Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles  Batman '89

What’s that? You’re still not satisfied? *Sigh* Fine, there’s some Harley Quinn in this one, too.

  • Harley Quinn ’00-’04 – Karl Kesel / Terry & Rachel Dodson
  • Harley Quinn ’13-’16 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin
  • Harley Quinn ’16-’20 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin
  • Harleen ’19 – Stjepan Sejic
  • Harley Quinn ’21- current – Stephanie Phillips / Riley Rossmo

What’s good? That depends on what flavor of Batman you like. It seems the caped crusader is flexible and has had different tones over the years.

Do you like the 90s Event era where the Batman family of books crossed over?  Most of those collections are $2.99/$3.99. Here’s a cheat sheet for that (we have a soft spot for No Man’s Land):

Prefer the mid-to-late 80s era? Starlin/Aparo or Grant/Breyfogle? Those collections are running $3.99/$4.99 and filed under the original Batman and Detective runs.

“The Caped Crusader” branded volumes collect the Batman issues and start here

“The Dark Knight Detective” branded volumes collect the Detective Comics issues and start here.

We’re also going to call out a few things that are a hair more expensive, but normally have a much higher price point:

Coincidentally, This Title is Returning Soon

Justice League of America  Justice League International Justice League

The DC Justice League Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

That’s right, as it’s announced at Comic-Con that Mark Waid & Dan Mora are launching a new Justice League Unlimited series, a sale on the Justice League follows. To paraphrase Casablanca, “We’re shocked. Shocked to find Justice League on sale.” We also note some decent prices and a chunk of $2.99 books sprinkled in.

Let’s start out by counting down the many flavors available:

For some of the side series:

What’s good?

The Nail is Alan Davis with an A+ Elseworlds take on a Justice League on a world where Superman did not emerge as the first hero.

You can get a big chunk (500+ pages) of the BWA HA HA era in omnibus format for $5.99.

$2.99 for Dwayne McDuffie’s run (starting here) is a good deal.

$2.99 for the first pair of Silver Age collections is also a good deal.

Under the radar?  The Christopher Priest / Pete Woods arc from ~3 years back. It’s just good comics without silly crossovers.

Miss Natchios If You’re Nasty…

Elektra Assassin  Daredevil: Fall From Grace  Daredevil The Man Without Fear

The Marvel Elektra Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

That would Elektra, the former Hand assassin and on-again-off-again love interest of a certain Mathew Murdoch.  Strangely, the original Daredevil run isn’t included here, but let’s do a quick rundown in rough chronological order.

What’s good here? Elektra: Assassin is the undisputed classic. A very odd series, originally from Epic (not for kids) about Elektra rebelling against The Beast (the demon behind The Hand, not the X-Man) and stalking a politician controlled by The Beast.

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear is essentially Miller doing “Daredevil: Year One.” It isn’t Elektra-heavy, but it’s good.

Daredevil & Elektra by Chip Zdarsky is quite good, though it’s also the final act of Zdarsky’s run and isn’t the best place to start.

The Chichester / McDaniel Daredevil era seems to be getting a critical reappraisal these days. We liked it the first time around and it’s when Elektra was re-introduced into the supporting cast (on order from editorial, IIRC).

Unannounced Sale of the Week – Held Over

The Hunger and the Dusk

The Hunger & The Dusk, V.1 – G. Willow Wilson / Chris Wildgoose; We were startled this was on sale for $1.99 last week (it hasn’t even been out for 2 months yet), we’re still startled… but it was probably our favorite read of the last month and it’s well worth a look if you like intelligent Epic Fantasy.

All Kinds of Unannounced Dark Horse Sales

Apache Delivery Service

There are two new unannounced Dark Horse Sales:

1)  The wide world of Matt Kindt, who’s done quite a bit of work for them:

2) Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire & Dean Ormston

And then the line-wide sale

Goldfish  Martha Washington  Nexus

.Dark Horse has a mostly line-wide 50% off sale, excepting recent releases and a few things where perhaps the price wasn’t updated. This is stilted towards the collected editions. It’s been going on since last week and we think it should still be active through Monday, maybe Tuesday? How does a person properly browse this?

Not very easily. Amazon does not make it easy to sort by publisher.

This link will get you a _very_ unsorted stream of Dark Horse titles to pick through.

And let’s drop links for some of the usual suspect series while we’re at it:

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